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The Stillwater Tragedy

T >> Thomas Bailey Aldrich >> The Stillwater Tragedy




Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the
plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he
heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the distance, saying,--

"I have not finished yet, Richard."

"Go on," said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of
galvanic action. "Go on, please."

"I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your
preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or
cordiality,--I don't know how to name it. You are the only person who
seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month ago. I am
obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have spent in the
studio to keep off the impression that during my illness you got used
to not seeing me, and that now my presence somehow obstructs your
work and annoys you."

Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the
window where Margaret was.

"You are as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her
half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding; for
the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her.

"I am glad if I am wrong."

"It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as
you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time!"

"You would have been very sorry?"

"Sorry? No. That doesn't express it; one outlives mere sorrow. If
anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it. You
don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of death
to come to this room day after day, and not find you."

Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by
Richard rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through and
beyond him, as if he were incorporeal.

"You missed me like that?" she said slowly.

"I missed you like that."

Margaret meditated a moment. "In the first days of my illness I
wondered if you didn't miss me a little; afterwards everything was
confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be somebody
else,--I seemed to be _you_ waiting for me here in the studio.
Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered, and returned to my old
place, I began to suspect I had been bearing your anxiety,--that I
had been distressed by the absence to which you had grown
accustomed."

"I never got used to it, Margaret. It became more and more
unendurable. This workshop was full of--of your absence. There wasn't
a sketch or a cast or an object in the room that didn't remind me of
you, and seem to mock at me for having let the most precious moments
of my life slip away unheeded. That bit of geranium in the glass
yonder seemed to say with its dying breath, 'You have cared for
neither of us as you ought to have cared; my scent and her goodness
have been all one to you,--things to take or to leave. It was for no
merit of yours that she was always planning something to make life
smoother and brighter for you. What had you done to deserve it? How
unselfish and generous and good she has been to you for years and
years! What would have become of you without her? She left me here on
purpose'--it's the geranium leaf that is speaking all the while,
Margaret--'to say this to you, and to tell you that she was not half
appreciated; but now you have lost her.'"

As she leaned forward listening, with her lips slightly parted,
Margaret gave an unconscious little approbative nod of the head.
Richard's fanciful accusation of himself caused her a singular thrill
of pleasure. He had never before spoken to her in just this fashion;
the subterfuge which his tenderness had employed, the little detour
it had made in order to get at her, was a novel species of flattery.
She recognized the ring of a distinctly new note in his voice; but,
strangely enough, the note lost its unfamiliarity in an instant.
Margaret recognized that fact also, and as she swiftly speculate don
the phenomenon her pulse went one or two strokes faster.

"Oh, you poor boy!" she said, looking up with a laugh, and a flush
so interfused that they seemed one, "that geranium took a great deal
upon itself. It went quite beyond its instructions, which were simply
to remind you of me now and then. One day, while you were out,--the
day before I was taken ill,--I placed the flowers on the desk there,
perhaps with a kind of premonition that I was going away from you for
a time."

"What if you had never come back?"

"I wouldn't think of that if I were you," said Margaret softly.

"But it haunts me,--that thought. Sometimes of a morning, after I
unlock the workshop door, I stand hesitating, with my hand on the
latch, as one might hesitate a few seconds before stepping into a
tomb. There were days last month, Margaret, when this chamber did
appear to me like a tomb. All that was happy in my past seemed to lie
buried here; it was something visible and tangible; I used to steal
in and look upon it."

"Oh, Richard!"

"If you only knew what a life I led as a boy in my cousin's house,
and what a doleful existence for years afterwards, until I found you,
perhaps you would understand my despair when I saw everything
suddenly slipping away from me. Margaret! the day your father brought
you in here, I had all I could do not to kneel down at your
feet"--Richard stopped short. "I didn't mean to tell you that," he
added, turning towards the work-table. Then he checked himself, and
came and stood in front of her again. He had gone too far not to go
further. "While you were ill I made a great discovery."

"What was that, Richard?"

"I discovered that I had been blind for two or three years."

"Blind?" repeated Margaret.

"Stone-blind. I discovered it by suddenly seeing--by seeing that I
had loved you all the while, Margaret! Are you offended?"

"No," said Margaret, slowly; she was a moment finding her voice to
say it. "I--ought I to be offended?"

"Not if you are not!" said Richard.

"Then I am note. I--I've made little discoveries myself," murmured
Margaret, going into full mourning with her eyelashes.

But it was only for an instant. She refused to take her happiness
shyly or insincerely; it was something too sacred. She was a trifle
appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered
his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had
made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met
him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had
been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration,
moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or
less plain to her that past month, and she had diligently disciplined
herself to accept Richard's friendship, since it seemed all he had to
give. Indeed, it had seemed at times as if he had not even that.

When Margaret lifted her eyes to him, a second after her
confession, they were full of a sweet seriousness, and she had no
thought of withdrawing the hands which Richard had taken, and was
holding lightly, that she might withdraw them if she willed. She felt
no impulse to do so, though as Margaret looked up she saw her father
standing a few paces behind Richard.

With an occult sense of another presence in the room, Richard,
turned at the same instant.

Mr. Slocum had advanced two steps into the apartment, and had been
brought to a dead halt by the surprising tableau in the embrasure of
the window. He stood motionless, with an account-book under his arm,
while a dozen expressions chased each other over his countenance.

"Mr. Slocum," said Richard, who saw that only one course lay open
to him, "I love Margaret, and I have been telling her."

At that the flitting shadows on Mr. Slocum's face settled into one
grave look. He did not reply immediately, but let his glance wander
from Margaret to Richard, and back again to Margaret, slowly
digesting the fact. It was evident he had not relished it. Meanwhile
the girl had risen from the chair and was moving towards her father.

"This strikes me as very extraordinary," he said at last. "You
have never given any intimation that such a feeling existed. How long
has this been going on?"

"I have always been fond of Margaret, sir; but I was not aware of
the strength of the attachment until the time of her illness, when
I--that is, we--came near to losing her."

"And you, Margaret?"

As Mr. Slocum spoke he instinctively put one arm around Margaret,
who had crept closely to his side.

"I don't know when I began to love Richard," said Margaret simply.

"You don't know!"

"Perhaps it was while I was ill; perhaps it was long before that;
may be my liking for him commenced as far back as the time he made
the cast of my hand. How can I tell, papa? I don't know."

"There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance here!"

Margaret bit her lip, and kept still. Her father was taking it a
great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long, awkward
silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking uneasily,
"Nothing has been or was to be concealed from you. Before going to
sleep to-night, Margaret would have told you all I've said to her."

"You should have consulted with me before saying anything."

"I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope you
will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret, though I
see as plainly as you do that I am not worthy of her."

"I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely different
ground. Margaret is too young. A girl of seventeen or eighteen"--

"Nineteen," said Margaret, parenthetically.

"Of nineteen, then,--has no business to bother her head with such
matters. Only yesterday she was a child!"

Richard glanced across at Margaret, and endeavored to recall her
as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked defiantly
at the workshop door to inquire if he wanted any pans and pails; but
he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude little figure with
the glossy black head, all eyes and beak, like a young hawk's.

"My objection is impersonal," continued Mr. Slocum. "I object to
the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have disliked
it--years hence; I don't say; but I dislike it now."

Richard's face brightened. "It will be years hence in a few
years!"

Mr. Slocum replied with a slow, grave smile, "I am not going to be
unreasonable in a matter where I find Margaret's happiness concerned;
and yours, Richard, I care for that, too; but I'll have no
entanglements. You and she are to be good friends, and nothing
beyond. I prefer that Margaret should not come to the studio so
often; you shall see her whenever you like at our fireside, of an
evening. I don't think the conditions hard."

Mr. Slocum had dictated terms, but it was virtually a surrender.
Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting against his arm, and
a warm light nestled down deep under her eyelids.

Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. "I presume I have not done
wisely. Every one bullies me. The Marble Workers' Association ruins
my yard for me, and now my daughter is taken off my hands. By the
way, Richard," he said, interrupting himself brusquely, and with an
air of dismissing the subject, "I forgot what I came for. I've been
thinking over Torrini's case, and have concluded that you had better
make up his account and discharge him."

"Certainly, sir," replied Richard, with a shadow of dissent in his
manner, "if you wish it."

"He causes a deal of trouble in the yard."

"I am afraid he does. Sucha clean workman when he's sober!"

"But he is never sober."

"He has been in a bad way lately, I admit."

"His example demoralizes the men. I can see it day by day."

"I wish he were not so necessary at this moment," observed
Richard. "I don't know who else could be trusted with the frieze for
the Soldiers' Monument. I'd like to keep him on a week or ten days
longer. Suppose I have a plain talk with Torrini?"

"Surely we have enough good hands to stand the loss of one."

"For a special kind of work there is nobody in the yard like
Torrini. That is one reason why I want to hold on to him for a while,
and there are other reasons."

"Such as what?"

"Well, I think it would not be wholly politic to break with him
just now."

"Why not now as well as any time?"

"He has lately been elected secretary of the Association."

"What of that?"

"He has a great deal of influence there."

"If we put him out of the works it seems to me he would lose his
importance, if he really has any to speak of."

"You are mistaken if you doubt it. His position gives him a chance
to do much mischief, and he would avail himself of it very adroitly,
if he had a personal grievance."

"I believe you are actually afraid of the fellow."

Richard smiled. "No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate
him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader; he's an
effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction.
Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work
among the men. There's considerable grumbling in the yard."

"They are always grumbling, aren't they?"

"Most always, but this is more serious than usual; there appears
to be a general stir among the trades in the village. I don't
understand it clearly. The marble workers have been holding secret
meetings."

"They mean business, you think?"

"They mean increased wages, perhaps."

"But we are now paying from five to ten per cent more than any
trade in the place. What are they after?"

"So far as I can gather, sir, the finishers and the slab-sawers
want an advance,--I don't know how much. Then there's some talk about
having the yard closed an hour earlier on Saturdays. All this is
merely rumor; but I am sure there is something in it."

"Confound the whole lot! If we can't discharge a drunken hand
without raising the pay of all t he rest, we had better turn over the
entire business to the Association. But do as you like, Richard. You
see how I am bullied, Margaret. He runs everything! Come, dear."

And Mr. Slocum quitted the workshop, taking Margaret with him.
Richard remained standing awhile by the table, in a deep study, with
his eyes fixed on the floor. He thought of his early days in the
sepulchral house in Welch's Court, of his wanderings abroad, his long
years of toil since then, and this sudden blissful love that had come
to him, and Mr. Slocum's generosity. Then he thought of Torrini, and
went down into the yard gently to admonish the man, for Richard'
heart that hour was full of kindness for all the world.






XI





In spite of Mr. Slocum's stipulations respecting the frequency of
Margaret's visits to the studio, she was free to come and go as she
liked. It was easy for him to say, Be good friends, and nothing
beyond; but after that day in the workshop it was impossible for
Richard and Margaret to be anything but lovers. The hollowness of
pretending otherwise was clear even to Mr. Slocum. In the love of a
father for a daughter there is always a vague jealousy which refuses
to render a coherent explanation of itself. Mr. Slocum did not escape
this, but he managed, nevertheless, to accept the inevitable with
very fair grace, and presently to confess to himself that the
occurrence which had at first taken him aback was the most natural in
the world. That Margaret and Richard, thrown together as they had
been, should end by falling in love with each other was not a result
to justify much surprise. Indeed, there was a special propriety in
their doing so. The Shackfords had always been reputable people in
the village,--down to Lemuel Shackford, who of course as an old
musk-rat. The family attributes of amiability and honesty had skipped
him, but they had reappeared in Richard. It was through his foresight
and personal energy that the most lucrative branch of the trade had
been established. His services entitled him to a future interest in
the business, and Mr. Slocum had intended he should have it. Mr.
Slocum had not dreamed of throwing in Margaret also; but since that
addition had suggested itself, it seemed to him one of the happy
features of the arrangement. Richard would thus be doubly identified
with the yard, to which, in fact, he had become more necessary than
Mr. Slocum himself.

"He has more backbone with the men than I have," acknowledged Mr.
Slocum. "He knows how to manage them, and I don't."

As soft as Slocum was a Stillwater proverb. Richard certainly had
plenty of backbone; it was his only capital. In Mr. Slocum's
estimation it was sufficient capital. But Lemuel Shackford was a very
rich man, and Mr. Slocum could not avoid seeing that it would be
decent in Richard's only surviving relative if, at this juncture, he
were to display a little interest in the young fellow's welfare.

"If he would only offer to advance a few thousand dollars for
Richard," said Mr. Slocum, one evening, to Margaret, with whom he had
been talking over the future--"the property must all come to him some
time,--it would be a vast satisfaction to me to tell the old man that
we can get along without any of his ill-gotten gains. He made the
bulk of his fortune during the war, you know. The old sea-serpent,"
continued Mr. Slocum, with hopeless confusion of metaphor, "had a
hand in fitting out more than one blockade-runner. They used to talk
of a ship that got away from Charleston with a cargo of cotton that
netted the share-holders upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. He
denies it now, but everybody knows Shackford. He'd betray his country
for fifty cents in postage-stamps."

"Oh, papa! you are too hard on him."

In words dropped cursorily from time to time, Margaret imparted to
Richard the substance of her father's speech, and it set Richard
reflecting. It was not among the probabilities that Lemuel Shackford
would advance a dollar to establish Richard, but if he could induce
his cousin even to take the matter into consideration, Richard felt
that it would be a kind of moral support to him circumstanced as he
was. His pride revolted at the idea of coming quite unbacked and
disowned, as well as empty-handed, to Mr. Slocum.

For the last twelve months there had been a cessation of ordinary
courtesies between the two cousins. They now passed each other on the
street without recognition. A year previously Mr. Shackford had
fallen ill, and Richard, aware of the inefficient domestic
arrangements in Welch's Court, had gone to the house out of sheer
pity. The old man was in bed, and weak with fever, but at seeing
Richard he managed to raise himself on one elbow.

"Oh, it's you!" he exclaimed, mockingly. "When a rich man is sick
the anxious heirs crowd around him; but they're twice as honestly
anxious when he is perfectly well."

"I came to see if I could do anything for you!" cried Richard,
with a ferocious glare, and in a tone that went curiously with his
words, and shook to the foundations his character of Good Samaritan.

"The only thing you can do for me is to go away."

"I'll do that with pleasure," retorted Richard bitterly.

And Richard went, vowing he would never set foot across the
threshold again. He could not help having ugly thoughts. Why should
all the efforts to bring about a reconciliation and all the
forbearance be on his side? Thenceforth the crabbed old man might go
to perdition if he wanted to.

And now here was Richard meditating a visit to that same house to
beg a favor!

Nothing but his love for Margaret could have dragged him to such a
banquet of humble-pie as he knew was spread for his delectation, the
morning he passed up the main street of Stillwater and turned into
Welch's Court.

As Richard laid his hand on the latch of the gate, Mr. Shackford,
who was digging in the front garden, looked up and saw him. Without
paying any heed to Richard's amicable salutation, the old man left
the shove sticking in the sod, and walked stiffly into the house. At
another moment this would have amused Richard, but now he gravely
followed his kinsman, and overtook him at the foot of the staircase.

"Cousin Shackford, can you spare me five or ten minutes?"

"Don't know as I can," said Mr. Shackford, with one foot on the
lower stair. "Time is valuable. What do you want? You want
something."

"Certainly, or I wouldn't think of trespassing on your time."

"Has Slocum thrown you over?" inquired the old man, turning
quickly. A straw which he held between his thin lips helped to give
him a singularly alert expression.

"No; Mr. Slocum and I agree the best in the world. I want to talk
with you briefly on certain matters; I want to be on decent terms
with you, if you will let me."

"Decent terms means money, doesn't it?" asked Mr. Shackford, with
a face as wary and lean as a shark's.

"I do wish to talk about money, among other things," returned
Richard, whom this brutal directness disconcerted a little,--"money
on satisfactory security."

"You can get it anywhere with that."

"So I might, and be asking no favor; but I would rather get it of
you, and consider it an obligation."

"I would rather you wouldn't."

"Listen to me a moment."

"Well, I'm listening."

Mr. Shackford stood in an attitude of attention, with his head
canted on one side, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the straw
between his teeth tilted up at an angle of forty degrees.

"I have, as you know, worked my way in the marble yard to the
position of general manager," began Richard.

"I didn't know," said Mr. Shackford, "but I understand. You're a
sort of head grave-stone maker."

"That is taking a rather gloomy view of it," said Richard, "but no
matter. The point is, I hold a responsible position, and I now have a
chance to purchase a share in the works."

"Slocum is willing to take you in, eh?"

"Yes."

"Then the concern is hit."

"Hit?"

"Slocum is going into bankruptcy."

"You are wrong there. The yard was never so prosperous; the coming
year we shall coin money like a mint."

"You ought to know," said Mr. Shackford, ruminatively. "A thing as
good as a mint must be a good thing."

"If I were a partner in the business, I could marry Margaret."

"Who's Margaret?"

"Mr. Slocum's daughter."

"That's where the wind is! Now how much capital would it take to
do all that?" inquired Mr. Shackford, with an air of affable
speculation.

"Three or four thousand dollars,--perhaps less."

"Well, I wouldn't give three or four cents to have you marry
Slocum's daughter. Richard, you can't pull any chestnuts out of the
fire with my paw."

Mr. Shackford's interrogation and his more than usual conciliatory
manner had lighted a hope which Richard had not brought with him. Its
sudden extinguishment was in consequence doubly aggravating.

"Slocum's daughter!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I'd as soon you
would marry Crazy Nan up at the work-house."

The association of Crazy Nan with Margaret sent a red flush into
Richard's cheek. He turned angrily towards the door, and then halted,
recollecting the resolve he had made not to lose his temper, come
what would. If the interview was to end there it had better not have
taken place.

"I had no expectation that you would assist me pecuniarily," said
Richard, after a moment. "Let us drop the money question; it
shouldn't have come up between us. I want you to aid me, not by
lending me money, but by giving me your countenance as the head of
the family,--by showing a natural interest in my affairs, and seeming
disposed to promote them."

"By just seeming?"

"That is really all I desire. If you were to propose to put
capital into the concern, Mr. Slocum would refuse it."

"Slocum would refuse it! Why in the devil should he refuse it?"

"Because"--Richard hesitated, finding himself unexpectedly on
delicate ground--"because he would not care to enter into business
relations with you, under the circumstances."

Mr. Shackford removed the straw from his mouth, and holding it
between his thumb and forefinger peered steadily through his
half-closed eyelids at Richard.

"I don't understand you."

"The dispute you had long ago, over the piece of meadow land
behind the marble yard. Mr. Slocum felt that you bore on him rather
heavily in that matter, and has not quite forgiven you for forcing
him to rebuild the sheds."

"Bother Slocum and his sheds! I understand him. What I don't
understand is _you_. I am to offer Slocum three or four thousand
dollars to set you up, and he is to decline to take it. Is that it?"

"That is not it at all," returned Richard. "My statement was this:
If you were to propose purchasing a share for me in the works, Mr.
Slocum would not entertain the proposition, thinking--as I don't
think--that he would mortify you by the refusal of your money."

"The only way Slocum could mortify me would be by getting hold of
it. But what are you driving at, anyhow? In one breath you demand
several thousand dollars, and in the next breath you tell me that
nobody expects it, or wants it, or could be induced to have it on any
terms. Perhaps you will inform me what you are here for?"

"That is what you will never discover!" cried Richard. "It is not
in you to comprehend the ties of sympathy that ought to hold between
two persons situated as we are. In most families this sympathy binds
closely at times,--at christenings, or burials, or when some member
is about to take an important step in life. Generally speaking, blood
is thicker than water; but your blood, cousin Shackford, seems to be
a good deal thinner. I came here to consult with you as my sole
remaining kinsman, as one authorized by years and position to give me
wise counsel and kindly encouragement at the turning point in my
fortune. I didn't wish to go among those people like a tramp, with
neither kith nor kin to say a word for me. Of course you don't
understand that. How should you? A sentiment of that kind is
something quite beyond your conception."

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